South Dakota Senate Campaign: Bush Versus Daschle (by Proxy)South Dakota Senate 
Campaign: Bush Versus Daschle (by Proxy)
     
 
             
            April 2, 2002
 
            South Dakota Senate Campaign: Bush Versus Daschle (by Proxy)
            By ALISON MITCHELL
 
 
 
                  Greg Latza/PeopleScapes for The New York Times
                  Senator Tom Daschle, left, campaigned for Senator Tim Johnson 
                  in Aberdeen, S.D., last month.
 
 
 
                  In Depth
                  Campaigns
 
            IOUX FALLS, S.D., March 29  The miles of snow-dusted farms and 
            ranches of the Great Plains seem an unlikely epicenter for the 
            struggle to control the Senate.
            Stranger still is that majority power in Washington may well end up 
            turning on such intense local concerns as whether meatpackers can 
            own livestock and whether South Dakota values political pork.
            But that is what happens when the Senate face-off this year between 
            the Democratic incumbent, Tim Johnson, and his Republican 
            challenger, Representative John Thune, could turn out to be the most 

            pivotal race in the 2002 elections.
            "This is regarded rightly or not as possibly the most contested 
            Senate campaign in America," Mr. Johnson, 55, acknowledged this week 

            to an audience of mostly elderly farmers in tiny Milbank. "It may 
            well be."
            This race could determine whether the Democrats keep their tenuous 
            hold on Senate power, whether the home state Senator Tom Daschle 
            remains majority leader and whether President Bush's agenda 
            advances. No public polling has been done recently in the race, and 
            people in both campaigns say it will be close.
            Many voters here are uncomfortable with the notion that so much is 
            riding on the contest. They say wistfully that they genuinely like 
            both candidates and wish they did not have to choose between them.
            "People would rather have it be a local race, but it just isn't," 
            said Michael Donnelly, 35, a Thune supporter and sales manager who 
            attended a packed Good Friday prayer breakfast just after dawn.
            Mr. Thune, 41, was nearby at the door energetically calling out 
            greetings to passers-by.
            In its way, the South Dakota face-off feels like a tale of two 
races.
            The one that is being played out here beside grain silos, at prayer 
            breakfasts and on Indian reservations often revolves around water 
            projects and federal grants and which candidate did more for South 
            Dakota in drafting farm legislation. One hot question is who is 
            fighting harder to prevent meatpackers from owning livestock, a 
            concern of smaller ranchers and farmers who say that meatpackers who 

            keep their own herds can control prices.
            The other race is a proxy battle between Mr. Daschle and President 
            Bush, which has the national parties and their ideological allies 
            pouring money, advertising and operatives into the state.
            Mr. Bush, who won South Dakota by 22 points in 2000, helped persuade 

            Mr. Thune to run for the Senate instead of for governor. Mr. Johnson 

            is Mr. Daschle's protg, and if he loses, the race could strip Mr. 
            Daschle of the Democrats' one-seat Senate majority, depending on the 

            outcome of other contests.
            So Karl Rove, Mr. Bush's chief political adviser, has been here 
            raising money for Mr. Thune, and several administration officials, 
            including Commerce Secretary Donald L. Evans, have come to South 
            Dakota. Mr. Bush is expected later this month. Former operatives 
            from the Al Gore campaign have signed up to help Mr. Johnson, and 
            Mr. Daschle sometimes campaigns at his side.
            The national party committees have already run an exchange of 
            political commercials, as if it were October. By some predictions, 
            $14 million could be spent in the race, making it perhaps the most 
            expensive in the nation per capita, because South Dakota has about 
            750,000 residents.
            "This is a race that's going to be a magnet for money across the 
            country," said Larry Makinson, who monitors campaign spending for 
            the Center for Responsive Politics.
            Out-of-state interests have already been all over South Dakota. For 
            months conservative groups have run advertisements, some to pressure 

            Mr. Johnson on issues, most attacking Mr. Daschle.
            "Our ads are based at helping Bush pass his agenda by throwing Tom 
            Daschle off balance," said Stephen Moore, whose Club for Growth has 
            run advertisements criticizing Mr. Daschle for blocking the 
            president's economic program and has a new set in the works.
            "But they do have a little bit of a ricochet effect," Mr. Moore 
            added, "because Tom Daschle and Tim Johnson are joined at the hip. 
            So any time you damage Daschle politically, you have this collateral 

            damage done to Tim Johnson."
            Mr. Daschle is appearing as a draw at Mr. Johnson's fund-raisers.
            One lobbyist and donor who would not allow his name to be used said, 

            "I think everybody recognizes that this is Tom Daschle's junior 
            senator."
            At the end of 2001, the Center for Responsive Politics reported, 77 
            percent of individuals' contributions to Mr. Johnson's campaign 
            larger than $200, totaling $1.1 million, were from out-of-state 
            donors. Mr. Johnson's aides say he raises many smaller donations in 
            South Dakota.
            In contrast, 22 percent of Mr. Thune's contributions of more than 
            $200 from individuals, totaling $132,700, came from out of state. He 

            did not officially enter the race until October, however, and he was 

            recently raising money in California. Both men also had 
            contributions from political action committees.
            Yet for all the out-of-state interest, this race has a very local 
            feel. True, Mr. Thune is striking national Republican themes, 
            putting a heavy emphasis on cutting taxes and a strong defense, but 
            Mr. Johnson, in perhaps a textbook example of how Democrats hope to 
            survive in conservative states, is trying to turn the race into a 
            referendum on who can deliver the most for South Dakota. Thanks to 
            Mr. Daschle, he snagged a coveted seat last year on the powerful 
            Appropriations Committee.
            So at stop after stop Mr. Johnson highlights grants that he says he 
            brought home, like nearly $1 million to help Milbank keep its 
            hospital.
            "It has been a long, long time since South Dakota's had a member of 
            the Appropriations Committee," he said before touring a university 
            laboratory. "I've had that honor only the past year. But when you 
            look at what we've been able to accomplish in one year, it's 
            self-serving to say, but I think that maybe we want to try to 
            sustain that for a while further."
            Occasionally, he openly says that his fate could also affect Mr. 
            Daschle, who is immensely popular.
            As Mr. Johnson said in Milbank, his race "could very well determine 
            whether the majority leader is from South Dakota or Mississippi," a 
            reference to the home state of Senator Trent Lott, who led the 
            Senate before Senator James M. Jeffords of Vermont defected from the 

            Republicans and gave the Democrats control.
            Mr. Johnson said in an interview that Mr. Daschle was bound to be a 
            subtext in the contest. 
            "People are proud that the majority leader comes from South Dakota," 

            he said. "They are very much aware of his clout as well." 
            Mr. Thune, who as South Dakota's lone statewide member of Congress 
            has won overwhelmingly in recent years, is working to portray the 
            Democratic incumbent as out of step with the values of the voters, 
            more registered as Republican than as Democrats. "I think I reflect 
            them better," he says. 
            His campaign commercials emphasize cutting taxes and his support for 

            a strong military, including a missile defense system and the B-2 
            bomber. They say Mr. Thune represents "South Dakota values," 
            suggesting that Mr. Johnson does not.
            At times Mr. Thune tries to rise above the debate over who has 
            secured more for South Dakota. When Mr. Johnson held a news 
            conference to say that the Senate version of the farm bill was more 
            beneficial to South Dakota than the House one, Mr. Thune told 
            reporters that the final bill was still being negotiated and that it 

            was "not a time for playing politics."
            But in his own advertisements, he has joined the fray, taking credit 

            for helping secure money for a water pipeline and for highways, and 
            for helping transform an abandoned gold mine into a physics 
            laboratory.
            Mr. Thune steps gingerly around the issue of Mr. Daschle, saying in 
            an interview, "I think most people understand that whether they are 
            in the majority or minority, Tom Daschle is going to be the leader 
            of the Democrats." 
            He argued that South Dakota would therefore be better off with Mr. 
            Daschle and a Republican senator with access to President Bush.
            Many voters are torn.
            "I don't relish going to the voting booth," said Dennis Davis, who 
            as executive director of South Dakota Rural Water has worked with 
            both lawmakers. "I don't want to see either one of them gone."
 
 
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